Severance
by Cirocco
Summary: George is left behind. Spoilers for DH.


**Author's Note:** OK, this is probably the most depressing thing I've written in a long, long time. Not sure why the angst-bunny grabbed and shook me so hard with this one, but here it is in all its emo glory ;)

Set after Deathly Hallows, no pairings, PG for language.

**ooo000ooo**

**The problem is, he's alone.**

Fred isn't there, that much is obvious. George honestly would've said, before this, that it wasn't like they were Siamese twins. He's perfectly capable of being by himself; it's not as if Fred accompanies him to the loo, or goes into the same darkened room as him and that tall cousin of Fleur's, or invites him along with Angelina after the Yule Ball. He's better than Fred when it comes to talking to other Diagon Alley shopkeepers. Fred's better at dealing with the Gringott's goblins. They've had separate bedrooms since WWW got big enough for them to afford a bigger flat.

But Fred's not there for good and it's like missing a limb, missing his reflection, reaching for something that's almost always been there and finding it missing, again and again and again and every time he feels the limb amputated. Every single bloody time he looks up and doesn't see himself. Every single bloody time he says something that Fred would've understood and Fred doesn't laugh, doesn't argue, doesn't say it at the same time.

**The problem is, he's never alone.**

They won't let him be. Mum makes him stay at the Burrow for weeks afterwards, and he can't seem to extricate himself. Fred would take Puking Pastilles and fake severe food poisoning, tell George to start breaking wind constantly, tell him they'd better not say they have to go to the shop to take care of business or Mum'll cry and hold on harder. But Fred doesn't do any of that and George has no idea whether any of his own escape plans make sense. He can't even make any. Fred was the best at Part 1 ("Where Are We Now"). George has always done Part 2 ("Where Do We Want To Be") and Part 3 ("How Can We Get There"). Fred does Part 4 ("What's Wrong With George's Part 3").

Dad's there a lot. Dad's got tears in his eyes most of the time. And when he doesn't, he's dead to the world, overworked and overwhelmed.

Bill and Charlie are there, with the Veela wife and smell of dragonfire, and they spend hours with George on one pretext or another. "Come help me de-gnome my garden," says Bill. "At Shell cottage, out by the sea. It'll be good to get out of the Burrow, won't it?"

"You've got to read this, mate," says Charlie, holding out a copy of _Dragons Today_. "They've found a cross between a Chinese Fireball and a Hungarian Horntail, and they don't know what to call it."

George has no suggestions. The thing is butt ugly.

"What d'you think… Chingarian Hornball? Hunchese Firetail?"

George doesn't realize until much later that Charlie probably thought he was being funny.

Ron's silent. Tentative. And always underfoot.

Ginny wants, so much, to help. But she's in the middle of getting some joy back in her life, often has eyes only for Harry, and George doesn't want to be a third wheel, and if Fred were here they'd take the mickey out of the both of them - Ronnie and Hermione as well - but as it is, George just wants them to go away and stop asking him to join them. He can't wait for the four of them to go back to school.

They all see that George is only half there.

It's Percy who's probably the best at dealing with him. Probably, George thinks, because he's used to being alone. They talk about the weather and Percy's search for non-Ministry-related employment. It's Percy who first asks him about WWW, Percy who only nods and changes the subject when George shrugs and says, "Yeah, I assume it's still open. Verity and Natasha'll probably send me an owl if they need anything."

Percy takes him to a bar, and it's funny as hell seeing him get a bit silly and slur his words. George can drink him under the table. In fact, he does just that one night, when he dares Percy to try Brain-Blaster Beer and Percy knocks it back, then goes slack-faced and slides down his seat and right onto the floor.

**The problem is, he can't feel a thing.**

Not a bloody thing. He gets up, brushes his teeth, eats breakfast, sees worried looks, turns to tell Fred something for the millionth time and there's nobody there, turns to smile at a joke of Fred's and sees Percy there instead, waits for Fred to answer Mum and suddenly realizes he'll have to do it, and he thinks he should feel something. Something sharp and hurtful. And he shies away from it, but then when he braces himself and lets himself feel, there's nothing. He's just empty. Detached. Numb.

**The problem is, he feels too bloody much.**

And then he's _not_ thinking about it and it's something bloody ridiculous like tripping and not hearing Fred make some witty comment about it and it hits him like a hammer to the solar plexus and he can't breathe. He feels slightly annoyed that Fred didn't get the mustard to the table, it's Wednesday and Fred does condiments on Wednesday, turns to say so and gets as far as opening his mouth to say Oi! when he remembers and has to sit down, the shock is so deep. Wakes up and looks across the room he's in at the Burrow - _not_ his and Fred's old room, Mum said that one's being used for something else now and he knows that's the result of a secret family meeting about whether George would be better of in his old room or not - and the wave of grief is unendurable.

Or he's with the Healers, they're still trying to see if they can give him back his ear, or conjure another one up, or compensate for the slight dizziness he feels sometimes, and he'll see somebody else who was injured in the Hogwarts battle and the rage is so sudden and overpowering it nearly blinds him. He feels dizzy and shaky, like when they were testing the Puking Pastilles, only Fred's not there to share the admittedly grim joke. He wants to track down every single Death Eater that's still alive and Crucio them all. Imperio them into killing each other, maybe get a few of the families to do each other in. Make Lucius Malfoy torture and slowly kill Narcissa, or even better, make them both do in their little toerag of a son. Let them live with that. Let Greg Gargoyle, who's serving a piddly ten months in Azkaban, slowly and painfully grunt his way into death, George hasn't decided how. Skin-ripping curses, shaking curses, melting curses, bone-shattering curses. Maybe he'll dig through the discarded products storage room, where he and Fred keep all the inventions they haven't been able to make safe enough to sell.

He doesn't hate Fred. He _doesn't_, that's not possible, what he's feeling must be something else.

And then he's scared and it feels like when they first started testing the Shrieking Scarves, before they'd perfected the part of the charm where the wearer was perfectly aware that they just needed to take the thing off to get rid of the stark terror. Those scarves ended up a real trip, once they worked out the kinks. You were petrified, but it was fun, like playing Quidditch or flying Dad's car.

This isn't fun. He's only twenty and wizards can live a long, long time, and he's terrified that he'll never feel any better, that the numbness and loneliness and grief and rage is all he'll be able to feel from now on. Firewhiskey makes it bearable, but he can't be drunk all the time, Mum won't let him.

**The problem is, he keeps forgetting.**

He does. He opens his mouth a dozen times a day to make a joke and forgets that there's nobody to hear it. He waits for Fred to do his share of the housework. He even holds the door open, waiting for Fred's footsteps behind him.

"What's the matter?" he asks his mother sometimes, and is honestly puzzled when she looks at him in surprise.

**The problem is, he can't forget.**

Every time. Every bloody time. No laughter answers him. No dirty socks picked up. No steps behind him. Mum's tears suddenly make sense.

**The problem is, he's not himself any more.**

He's less than half of himself. Everyone can see that.

**The problem is, he's still the same person.**

And nobody _gets_ that. He's still here. But they all see the mutilation, and it changes who he is, to them, it makes them all unable to react normally to him, where not a single one of them blinked when he lost his ear.

It's not like grief is that foreign to him. People think they were always laughing and never upset, but that's not true. When Ginny was taken by Riddle's diary, when Dad was attacked by that snake, when Percy buggered off on them all, when Angelina dropped Fred, that all hurt. He and Fred just got through it in private, that's all.

**The problem is, he's getting scared of going to bed.**

He's dreamed of Fred dying more times than he can count. Fred is buried under the rubble. He's flying through the air as a piece of jagged masonry slices him in half. He's blown apart by the same curse that blows apart the wall. He's hit by a flash of green light. He's cut open by Sectumsempra and bleeds to death. And Percy tells him, Percy's sobbing uncontrollably, leading him to the place where he and Harry dragged Fred's body, and Fred doesn't look like he's just sleeping, the way people say the dead often look, because he's covered in blood and dust. Mum shrieks and falls down, semi-hysterical. Ron won't let George see Fred's body, "You don't need to see that, George, please trust me, it won't help-" and Dad's face is bone-white as he points to the wall that's shattering and George tries to stop it but his spell isn't strong enough, and he grabs at Bellatrix before she can curse Fred but he's too slow for her, and he grabs Fred's hand as Fred falls down a hole in the Great Hall floor but his hand slips and he can't even hear the impact, Fred's fallen so far down…

**The problem is, he's scared of going to bed.**

Fred's cursing at yet another mistake George has made in their financial statements. "Not the right time to have to spend more time than necessary with the goblins, mate. D'you know where they probed me last time?"

They're trying to decide who's going to ask out Verity. Talking each other into it and talking each other out of it. She's their employee, calls them both "Mr. Weasley," but she's got all the right curves in all the right places, and they vow that if they ever have to find another assistant for the shop they'll make sure it's somebody as plain as the day is long.

They're gleefully taking out all the stuff they managed to nick during the eternal cleanup of Grimmauld Place, perfecting their Extendable Ears, Apparating all over the place, avoiding Mum's scolding, organizing WWW for opening day, filling orders, making fun of Zonko's, brewing their Ageing potion.

They're making fun of Ron and Hermione, whom they just discovered snogging behind the shed at the Burrow. They're putting together a list of baby names for Bill and Fleur's upcoming bundle of joy. Fred doesn't think Bill will appreciate "Bilius Bill," George doesn't think Fleur will be amused at "Wesley Weasley," but they leave both names on the list anyway. They're having a serious talk with Harry over his intentions towards Ginny, but they can't resist a few gags here and there. Or a few threats, either. Harry actually believes them when they say they've slipped Weasley's Wand-Wilt into his pumpkin juice and will only give him the antidote if he'll make an Unbreakable Vow to treat Ginny right. He doesn't believe them when they say they'll hunt him down and kill him if he ever hurts her. What's funny is, it should be the other way around.

And then he wakes up.

**The problem is, he's Fred.**

The rest of them can't really bury Fred, because George is a constant reminder of him. Because Fred is walking and talking and with them all the time.

**The problem is, he's not Fred.**

He's not. He can't be.

**The problem is, nobody understands.**

Ginny comes closest. But she's missing him too, and she was the one who knew him the best, and sometimes George thinks she's the only one who really misses Fred the way George does - as Fred himself, not just half the Twins. The one whose voice was pitched a bit lower than George's, the one who was sometimes more level-headed than George, the one who was better around women, the one who did most of the follow-up checking for their schemes, who was sometimes surprised at the shit George came up with because he wasn't quite as creative.

George has taken to visiting Lupin and Tonks' baby. He knows Andromeda Tonks is mourning the loss of her husband and daughter. Knows that she didn't know Fred from a hole in the wall (that's not a particularly funny expression, considering), has no idea how close Fred and George were. And the baby, of course, understands nothing but milk and nappies.

It's better that way, thinks George. He's never had a lot of use for babies, and neither did Fred, and he hasn't a clue what Fred would've done around little orphaned Teddy Lupin, and maybe that's a good thing. Because then Andromeda's house is a Fred-free zone.

Harry's often there, and that's all right too. Harry's battling his own demons, but at the Burrow it's all about Dead Fred and Earless, Twinless George and everybody's grief revolves around that. It gets boring, frankly. Here, Harry also deals with losing the last remotely father-like figure he had left. Deals with the uncertainty of how to deal with Teddy. How to be a godfather when he's got precious few memories of his own godfather and even fewer of his father. Probably deals with guilt or something, for all the people who died while he was trying to off Voldemort. Deals with the more mundane things like preparing for his final year at school, thoughts of a future beyond Hogwarts, all of that. It's a nice break from the eternal Burrow angst. Andromeda also has a fine stock of Silver Scotch.

**The problem is, everybody understands.**

Or they think they do. Partly because they're always watching him like a hawk, partly because he's let slip and blurted and spat out so many things, especially while drunk.

"Oh for God's sake, I'm not the one who's dead, you know!"

"I don't know and I don't _care_ what Fred would've thought about that!"

"What th'fuck d'you think is wrong with me, Perce?"

"I'm not made of fucking glass! Stop looking at me like that!"

"Fred wouldn't want me to drink so much? 'S too bad Dead Fred's not here to say so then, innit?"

And the problem is there's not a damn thing any of them can do about it, except wait and hope that it gets easier with time.


End file.
